Carbonite

Carbonite refers to multiple notable uses in popular culture and technology, including a fictional substance in the Star Wars universe and a real-world data backup company and service.

In Star Wars, carbonite is a fictional material used to suspend living beings and objects in a solid block, enabling transport and storage. The most famous example is Han Solo, who is frozen in carbonite in The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Within the films and related media, carbonite is presented as a cryogenic-like process, though it remains a product of science fiction rather than real-world science.

Carbonite, Inc. is a real-world provider of cloud backup and data protection services. It offers automatic backups and secure storage for personal computers, external drives, and servers, with consumer offerings marketed under Carbonite Safe and business solutions for organizations. The company was founded in 2005. In 2019, OpenText announced its plan to acquire Carbonite for about $1.42 billion, with the acquisition closing in 2020. Carbonite's products were subsequently integrated into OpenText's portfolio of data protection and information management offerings.

The term Carbonite therefore has two distinct meanings: a fictional substance in a long-running science fiction franchise and a real company that provides online backup and recovery services. These uses are unrelated beyond sharing a common name.

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